Post from the Coast: The WCL on OSC
by Bruce Baskin
August 19, 2014 - West Coast League (WCL)
BELLINGHAM NIPS CORVALLIS, 3-2, TO WIN 2014 WCL PENNANT
The Bellingham Bells manufactured three runs in the third inning and then held on the rest of the way to beat the Corvallis Knights, 3-2, Monday in Bellingham, clinching the West Coast League championship series, 2 games to 1, to bring the city its first WCL pennant after ten years.
The game was scoreless until the bottom of the third inning, when Bellingham pushed three runs across the plate. With one out, SS Chris Baker (Washington) singled off Corvallis starter Chris Haddeland (Linfield) for just his second hit of the postseason. LF Lou Della Fera (Maine) sliced a single so misplayed by RF Tim Rausch (Western Oregon) that Baker was able to motor all the way around from first to put the Bells on the board. The rattled Haddeland then walked 2B Dustin Breshears (Gonzaga) on four pitches, balked while pitching to 3B Dallas Carroll (Utah) to advance the two Bellingham baserunners, uncorked a wild pitch that brought Della Fera home from third and finally served up an RBI single by Carroll to bring in Breshears. Haddeland fought his way through and ended up lasting well into the seventh without surrendering any more tallies.
The Knights countered with two runs of their own in the fourth, starting with 1B Dalton Kelly's (UC Santa Barbara) leadoff walk. 2B Marc Gallegos (Corban) singled before a fielder's choice groundout to third by 3B Kevin Kline (Dixie St) moved both runners into scoring position. DH Logan Ice (Oregon St) later whacked a two-out single, bringing both men in to close the gap to 3-2. Bells P Gabe Cramer (Stanford) then walked SS Mike Lucarelli (Portland) before being replaced by Moises Ceja (UCLA), who got Rausch to pop out to short to end the threat.
From that point on it was thrust-and-parry between the two sides with neither notching another run the rest of the way, with the Bellingham players exploding out of the dugout to celebrate their title after closer David Bigelow capped a superb season out of the bullpen (15 saves or wins with a 1.06 ERA in 30 WCL games) by inducing Knight CF Grant Melker (San Diego) into a 4-3 groundout to end the top of the ninth, the ballgame, the series and the season: Game, set, match for the Bells, who last won a pennant in 1999 in the semipro Pacific International League.
Five pitchers contributed to the Bells' six-hitter with Cramer getting the win. Dan Ludwig (Belmont) pitched a scoreless eighth inning to end his postseason with 10.1 shutout innings in four appearances, winning one game and saving another while leading hurlers for both team with 11 strikeouts. In all, Bellingham pitchers combined for a microscopic 1.84 ERA in five postseason outings. The Bells needed all the breaks in the field they could get, as their offense had just a .242 playoff average, including just three players hitting above .250. 1B Scott Heath (Maine) led all playoff batters with a .444 average by going 8-for-18 in five games.
Like Bellingham, Corvallis relied on good pitching to compensate for challenged hitting throughout the playoffs. The Knights staff contributed a creditable 2.51 ERA. The most solid pitcher may have been reliever Justin Calomeni (Cal Poly-SLO), who tossed 5.2 shutout innings with two wins and six strikeouts in two trips from the bullpen. Ice hit .400 in 10 at-bats, but the top-hitting Corvallis regular was C Dane Lund (Oregon St), who hit .278 in 18 ABs as the Knights hit just .212 as a team during the second season in which they handed the crown to the Bells.
One notable feature of this season's WCL playoffs is that none of the seven games went three hours, with the longest clocking in at 2:50 and Corvallis' 2-1 home win over Bend August 13 taking just 2:09 to play nine. Monday's finale lasted 2:37. Attendance was 2,821, bringing the Bells' four-game playoff total to 7,939 for an average of 1,985 fans (or 95% of ballpark capacity).
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West Coast League Stories from August 19, 2014
- Pippins and Sweets Make Top 50 Attendance List - Yakima Valley Pippins
- Sweets Again Make Top 50 List in Collegiate Summer Attendance - Walla Walla Sweets
- Post from the Coast: The WCL on OSC - OSC Original by Bruce Baskin
- Post from the Coast: The WCL on OSC - OSC Original by Bruce Baskin
- Post from the Coast: The WCL on OSC - OSC Original by Bruce Baskin
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